Faerie Lord Page 8

  While his mind was working, his thumb took on a life of its own and flicked the little wheel again and again. There was no more gas in the lighter, but it sparked bravely: sparked and sparked and it was so dark that even that small light, the light from the sparks, was enough to let him see the thing that hurled itself towards him.

  Twenty-Four

  As soon as Chalkhill set eyes on the place, he knew he’d struck gold. Brimstone usually favoured pokey, unobtrusive lodgings, but the Whitewell house was very different: a large, old waterfront property with the overhanging balconies that were fashionable five hundred years ago. It looked dilapidated to the casual eye, but Chalkhill’s eye was far from casual. He could almost smell the spell coatings, cunningly disguised but lavishly applied, that turned the place into a fortress. That sort of security cost a fortune and Brimstone was notoriously careful with money. There had to be something of importance hidden in there.

  Whitewell itself was one of those districts that had seen better days. Many of the fine old buildings had been turned into tenements. One of them, almost directly behind Brimstone’s new home, overlooked both its river access and the street. The toothless old crone who lived there accepted Chalkhill’s coin with alacrity, offered him services in which he had no interest, then vacated the premises with an assurance that she would not be back from the tavern before midnight.

  Chalkhill pulled a chair to the grubby window, fanned away a lingering odour of flatulence, and settled down to wait.

  Brimstone emerged as it was growing dark.

  Chalkhill drew back a little from the window, although it was hugely unlikely that Brimstone would look up. He watched as the old man scuttled down the narrow street and disappeared around a corner. Chalkhill waited fully five minutes to see if he would return, then decided the chances were Brimstone was headed for a cafe or a tavern to find himself something to eat. He was as frugal with his meals as he was with his money, but all the same, it would probably be at least an hour before he came back, and it might even be two. Chalkhill waited another few moments, just to be certain, then left the tenement.

  There were too many people about to allow a leisurely inspection of the front door, but fortunately a narrow archway led round to the river walk at the rear of the house and there he found no people at all. He had some small chance of being seen from the balconies of neighbouring houses, but it was well worth taking, especially as it was growing darker by the minute.

  Close up, his suspicions about spell coatings proved correct. But the interesting thing was they were so subtle. Most security wizards recommended coatings should be obvious to passersby, to act as a deterrent. Heaven only knew what Brimstone’s coatings were designed to do, but they were virtually invisible.

  Chalkhill stood for a moment wondering if he had the nerve to test the spell. It was unlikely to be lethal force – that sort of enchantment announced itself in heaps of dead birds and rodents at the foot of the wall but, knowing Brimstone, it was likely to be nasty. But he had to get past Brimstone’s securities if he was to gain entry to the house.

  He stood for a moment longer, considering. Short of lethal force, the most popular securities were lethes and mind-benders. Any prospective burglar hit with a lethe promptly forgot what he’d planned to do and wandered off. Mind-benders were less specific. Some regressed you to childhood, so you pooed in your pants, some compelled you to sing loudly until the Guard arrived, some simply knocked you unconscious and left you that way until you were discovered, tried and hanged. None of them was pleasant, but even if he was found unconscious with poo in his pants, he reckoned he could simply claim he’d come to visit an old friend and triggered the spell accidentally. Brimstone might even believe it.

  Chalkhill pushed through the coating to test the catch on the nearest window.

  He was halfway along the street before he realised what he was doing. The house – Brimstone’s house, that he’d searched for so long – seemed drab and uninteresting. Not the sort of place you would want to rob or enter or even look at for very long. It was a nonentity of a house, a bore of a house, a-

  It was a mind-bender. But what a spell. So subtle you didn’t even realise you’d been bent. Nothing spectacular or embarrassing, just the absolute conviction you should leave Brimstone’s house alone and get on your way. This was no standard, off-the-shelf mind-bender. This spell was clearly custom-made – and by a craftsman. Chalkhill felt a surge of excitement. You didn’t spend money on a craftsman-wizard unless you were hiding something important.

  He spun round, but discovered he was still in thrall. Each step towards Brimstone’s home turned his mind to porridge. In less than twenty yards, he could scarcely think at all. He took a deep breath and backed off until his head began to clear.

  What now? The spell would wear off eventually, of course, but by then Brimstone might be home again and the opportunity would be lost. It could be a day or more before another one arose. He had an antidote, of course – all spies carried antidotes to mind-benders but he was loath to use it. Maybe if he approached the house from a different direction . . .

  Chalkhill circled the street and approached the house from a different direction. The ploy worked well enough until the house was actually in sight, at which point it was mental porridge time again. His only other option was a river approach, a landing on the Brimstone jetty, but the chances were high that the spell was omnidirectional. Only an idiot would install partial protection and whatever else he might be, Brimstone was no idiot.

  It would have to be the antidote. But where to take it? Not in the street, that was for sure. Even though the plague left most streets half empty, there was still a chance that someone might pass by. And not on the river, or even near it. The aftermath was bad enough without the risk of drowning. Eventually he settled on a dark alley. He couldn’t think of anywhere better.

  The alley smelt of pee and was the sort of place where you were just asking to be mugged. But fear of plague had cleared out all the derelicts, so his only companion was a scrawny tomcat, which eyed him briefly without much interest, then returned to scavenging its dustbin.

  Chalkhill pulled the spy-kit from his pocket and extracted the golden vial. It was one of the new fast-acting spray spells and he pushed the nozzle against the pulse in his wrist before he had a chance to lose his nerve. The tomcat glanced round warily as the vial hissed.

  ‘Yeee-ahhhh!’ Chalkhill howled as the inside of his head exploded. He hurled himself against one wall of the alley, bounced violently and ricocheted into a doorway. The door held, if only just, so that his momentum took him out again and slammed him face down on the cobbles. His foot caught the dustbin. The tomcat spat at him angrily and raced away. Chalkhill climbed to his feet, aching all over with a warm flow of blood dribbling from his nose. He stood for a moment, breathing heavily.

  ‘Ooooowwwww! The second wave hit him. He spun on his axis, flailed his arms and punched in a small, leaded window.

  ‘Bog off – I’m drunk!’ a cross voice called out from inside.

  Chalkhill hurled himself backwards and sent the dustbin flying. The metallic clatter was unreal. Along the alley lights began to appear in the windows. Plague or no plague, somebody was bound to come out soon. Maybe none of this was such a good idea. Maybe …

  ‘Waaaaaaaaahhhhhh!’ Wave three. ‘Yabba-dabba-dabba– dabba-dabba!’ Chalkhill chattered. Sparks danced before his eyes. The world spun round and round. He began to hallucinate pink snakes. Sensing his helplessness, a large rat emerged from the shadows to gnaw at his ankle. In a sudden suicidal impulse he ran head down towards the nearest wall.

  Then it stopped and so did Chalkhill, mercifully having only grazed the wall. He stood, paining and panting while the hallucinations died away. He was bruised and bleeding and the rat had ripped flesh from his leg.

  He just hoped it would be worth it.

  Twenty-Five

  It was worth it! He could actually feel the spell membrane break beneath his hand, but th
ere was no mind-bending whatsoever. In fact he was experiencing exceptional clarity and some increased energy despite the pains throughout his body. His fingers fiddled with the catch, the locks gave way, the window swung back silently and Brimstone’s house lay open before him.

  Chalkhill climbed through, vowing to lose a little weight. He closed the window carefully, triggered the coatings that left it opaque from the outside, then snapped a light cone.

  He was in a nicely proportioned room – these old houses all had nice proportions – but one that was completely empty of furniture or fittings. Brimstone clearly wasn’t making full use of the big house. Which wasn’t surprising. He always lived frugally. Probably just moved himself into three or four rooms. Except that begged the question of why he needed a big house in the first place, even if it was old and probably cheap.

  Chalkhill started to creep forward so he wouldn’t make the floorboards creak, then remembered he was alone in the house and strode out of the room.

  He was in the main hallway by the front door, which was devoid of furniture as well. There were several doors leading off it. Chalkhill opened two at random. They led to empty, unfurnished rooms. Two more … two more empty rooms. In minutes he’d covered the ground floor. All the rooms were empty. There was a kitchen without pots or pans or any cooking equipment whatsoever – the place smelled of dust and looked as if it hadn’t been used for more than a century. Strange …

  Brimstone had to be living upstairs. Maybe he’d set himself up a bed-sit. Maybe he used spells for cooking some men did when they didn’t really care about the taste – or maybe he just ate out all the time as he seemed to be doing tonight.

  Chalkhill climbed the stairs, his footsteps echoing on the bare floorboards. He reached a landing where a half-open door revealed a bathroom, but that looked as little used as the downstairs kitchen. He went up another flight to the bedroom wing. Chamber after chamber was empty, not so much as a mattress on the floor, not so much as a tattered blanket in a cupboard. The whole place was absolutely, totally deserted. What was going on here?

  His light spell was beginning to dim, so he cracked another and leaned against a wall to think. This was definitely the house where the cabby claimed to have taken Brimstone. More to the point, this was the house Chalkhill had seen Brimstone leave at dusk. He had to be living here, yet there was no sign of human habitation whatsoever.

  Which meant Chalkhill had missed something.

  He went back downstairs and double-checked the rooms. All empty, like that stupid kitchen. He was double-checking the kitchen when a small sound behind him caused him to spin round, heart suddenly pumping. There was a familiar figure silhouetted in the doorway.

  ‘What kept you?’ Brimstone asked him sourly.

  Twenty-Six

  For the first time in her long life, Cynthia Cardui felt old. It wasn’t just the stiffness in the joints or the little pains that were one’s constant companion, it was the way emotions lost their power. One was calm. One was far more logical than one ever was in one’s youth. But, as if in horrid compensation, life grew cold.

  She stared down at the body of her lover. He had always been a thin man, thin and wiry, but since the life force left him, he looked shrunken, like a dried-out husk. So strange to see him like this and yet feel … nothing.

  The embalmers glided around her like wraiths, sober-faced women who all seemed to have slim hands with long fingers. They had inserted tubes into the major arteries of each thigh and attached them to terrible machines. One pumped out every last drop of his remaining blood, the other pumped in spell-bound gravistat to replace it. The gravistat liquid acted to dissolve internal organs while triggering the process of petrification.

  They were removing the brain now. (For some reason brains resisted the action of the gravistat.) Since it was important to preserve the skull intact – no cuts were permitted – the embalmers inserted an iron hook and expertly drew it out through the nose.

  Cynthia watched as the glistening lump of greyness dropped into a jar. Strange to think of all the prejudice and wisdom it had once contained; and all the love. By faerie custom, it was treated with little deference. She knew that when she left, it would be minced and laid out on a rock behind the palace to feed the birds.

  The gravistat itself was beginning to drain out now. The embalmers were used to the smell, but Cynthia took a step backwards. In itself, the liquid was odourless, but once mixed with liquefied intestines, the stench was extreme. From somewhere behind her, a priest-wizard began a sonorous chant.

  Had she and Alan done the right thing? The question was almost irrelevant. They had done the only thing. The tragedy was how much their actions had cost. But how bravely he had borne it. He had always been much more determined than she was, much less concerned with the personal consequences.

  Such consequences …

  She doubted she would ever take another lover, not at the age she’d reached now. She had no children and her profession meant she had few friends. (And was about to lose the most important of them, in all probability.) In such circumstances, she was likely to die alone. But at least Alan had not. She had been with him through the worst of his illness and poor dear Henry had been with him at the end. All exactly according to plan.

  She realised suddenly someone was speaking to her and turned to find the Chief Embalmer by her side, ‘I’m sorry – my mind was elsewhere.’

  ‘The pose, Painted Lady?’ the woman asked her. She wore the expression of professional sympathy that was an embalmer’s stock-in-trade.

  Cynthia looked at her blankly. ‘What are you asking me?’

  ‘For the memorial,’ the woman prompted, ‘I understood you wished to select the pose.’

  Ah, the memorial! She fancied Alan himself would have found this aspect of his death quite entertaining. What pose should be selected? Should he lunge forward with an upraised sword, like so many military heroes? Should he clutch a book or a scroll to emphasise his wisdom? She could almost hear him snort derisively at any of the classic postures.

  All the same, she would have to choose something. He was Gatekeeper of the Realm, after all, and there was a plinth already prepared for him in the Palace Memorial Garden of Remembrance. Her Alan would join a long line of Gatekeepers stretching back through the centuries. It was a fitting tribute to a great soul.

  ‘Would the Painted Lady care to study some designs?’ the embalmer asked politely.

  Cynthia glanced down to find the woman was holding a large leather-bound volume opened at a painting of the Memorial Garden. Spell coatings presented her with detail after detail of remembrance figures of the other Gatekeepers, including, she noticed with surprise, Tithonus, the Gatekeeper who betrayed his own Emperor.

  ‘He must be dressed in his Gatekeeper’s robes,’ Cynthia said uncertainly.

  ‘Of course, Painted Lady.’ The woman glanced delicately towards the bed. Cynthia followed her gaze and discovered the embalmers were doing it already.

  How would Alan want to be remembered? She wished she had discussed it with him before he died, but there had been so many more immediate things to consider.

  ‘There is a certain urgency, Painted Lady,’ the woman told her gently. ‘The gravistat …’

  Cynthia understood. Once introduced, the gravistat worked quickly. The body had to be placed in its correct position before the tissue turned to stone.

  She hesitated, then all of a sudden knew what she should do. Alan had always loved tinkering with gadgets and machinery. It was how he would want to be remembered.

  She took the book from the woman and closed it with a snap. ‘Take his workbench from the Gatekeeper’s Lodge and bring it to the Garden of Remembrance,’ she instructed firmly. ‘Place him beside it, leaning over. He should have a portable portal in his hand.’ She stared soberly at the woman. ‘Try not to make him look an idiot.’

  ‘Of course not, Painted Lady!’ the embalmer exclaimed.

  With her final duty done, Madame Ca
rdui swept from the room. Now she had to face the fury of her Queen.

  Twenty-Seven

  It wasn’t heavy and it wasn’t strong, but the thing struck Henry with such mindless fury that his face was lacerated and bleeding from a hundred cuts before he could raise a hand to defend himself. The useless lighter flew from his grasp as he struck out wildly.

  The creature was about the size of a dog. It looked, in the brief flash of the sparks, like something almost human, scrawny and leprous. But a human that had fangs and claws.

  It struck him again, hissing and spitting. This time it clawed his arm, ripping the sleeve of his coat and opening the flesh beneath. The pain was hideous, far worse than the scratches on his face. Henry staggered backwards and suddenly there was light.

  The creature howled.

  Henry clutched his injured arm. The light was blinding, but his eyes adjusted. He looked around in panic. There was a shattered stone sarcophagus beside him. There were bones strewn on the floor. He was in a ruined tomb. One wall was broken down and sunshine streamed in through it. The creature that had attacked him was crouched in a corner, cowering from the light. It had large, nocturnal eyes.

  In the instant it took him to look, Henry realised he’d torn down a hide curtain that had been blocking out the light. It was crudely sewn from animal skins and hung could it have been hung by the thing that attacked him?

  The thing clearly did not like the light. It growled and hissed from its gloomy corner, but made no move to attack him again. Now he could see properly, any resemblance he’d imagined between the creature and a human being quickly slipped away. It was humanoid in shape, but that was where any likeness stopped. It didn’t look human at all. But at the same time, it didn’t look like an animal either. It looked like nothing he had ever seen before. He kept thinking of a science fiction movie. The thing in that had come from Outer Space.